


Ghosts

by Lukita



Series: Boneyards and Shadows [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Magic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukita/pseuds/Lukita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a superstition that a woman who dies while wearing red returns as a vengeful spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to kedreeva for beta.

James Bond died on a Tuesday. He was resigned to it when it happened- no man can cheat death so many times without having to finally pay their due. He does not begrudge the kid who took the shot; Bond was an old man playing in a young man’s game.

What was surprising, however, was when he woke up in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, heart rate beating a steady tempo, and Eve Moneypenny was sitting by his bedside reading a novel.

“I didn’t know MI6 was still keeping track of my whereabouts,” Bond croaked out, or attempted to croak out, his throat dry from however long he was laid up in bed, limbs refusing to cooperate as he tried to sit up.

“Morning James,” Eve replied, cool as you please, she got up from her chair and helped him up before she held up a cup of water with a straw in it for him. “The Malaysian government is embarrassed that a tourist got caught up in a gang-related shooting in their fair capital and faintly relieved he survived said shooting. The doctors are saying it’s a miracle you’ve survived, as you should, by rights, be dead from blood loss, even if the bullets did miss anything vital.”

“What are you doing here?” Bond attempted to speak again after he drank his fill. It had been months since Blofeld, and MI6 had kept away all that time. He hadn’t forgotten he had a tracker in him that couldn’t be easily removed which made finding him as simple as pressing a button.

“I’m on vacation,” Eve replied with a shrug. “And then I heard you almost died, again.”

Bond leveled her with a stare, which she just smiled brightly at and offered to help him escape from the hospital.

***

“Where’s Dr Swann?” Eve asked blatantly looking around the empty hotel room.

Bond grunted in response. He and Madeleine ended things amicably in Paris because she wanted to hide and Bond was not the type to stay quiet. Neither Quantum nor SPECTRE would ever let them go.

“What are you still doing here?” Bond finally asked after he checked out of the hotel, and hailed a taxi for the airport.

“Thought that while I’m here, I might as well ask if I should file the paperwork for your retirement and replace you,” Eve said sliding into the seat next to him. Someone once told her that field work was not for everyone, though judging by what Bond was doing in his downtime, that may not be the case for him.

“I still have vacation time left,” Bond replied, not quite looking at Eve. The rest of the ride passed in silence, not oppressive but far from comfortable. Bond did not promise not to cause another international incident the next time he decided to shoot up a drug cartel.

When they reached the airport, Bond instructed the driver to take Eve to wherever she wanted, and then left without a backward glance. He paid for the first available flight out of Malaysia and settled down to wait in the terminal.

His flight landed in Hong Kong, a bustling metropolis that never slept and romantics likened her to a sparkling pearl. From the air, with the whole of Hong Kong laid out beneath at night, Bond could see why she was called that. Hong Kong had never done him any favors, had nearly killed him last time he was there, but much like any place that had been steeped in human history, she both welcomed and rejected him as a place to rest.

He checked into his hotel and unpacked a bag half the size of a carry on. He could travel with even less, but people tended to remember those who didn’t fit into certain expectations, or who did something outside of the norms.

He wandered the streets because there was nothing better to do and most of the bars were either trendy places that catered to tourists or quiet upscale ones that doubled for business meetings. There was a faint tang of smoke and incense in the air, as the more traditional side of Hong Kong burned offerings to the dead.

His wandering feet soon found him before one of the many odd alleyways littered around Hong Kong. One with a reputation that fifteen Triad members managed to lose their tail when they retreated into it during an operation in the 90’s. Those same men were found dead in the river not two days later, clear across the city and not a mark on them.

Never let it be said that Bond had any sort of survival instinct, he walked into the dark, damp alley, curious to what had happened to those men. The alley ended in a forgotten space behind the buildings, as if time had folded in on itself and pushed the buildings apart to create this place. No light shone out from windows as the buildings were meant to be back to back from each other, though an ambient light shone somewhere above, casting everything into a soft glow.

An ancient well stood in the center of the clearing, and Bond heard a splash when he tossed in a rock. The entire place hummed with the same energy he felt when Vesper died and he had his gun out and cocked before his conscious mind even registered there was someone there.

The figure at the wrong end of his gun was seated in a wheelchair, a splash of red amongst the tattered clothing clinging to their thin frame, white hair and weathered face.

“Have a care not to wake the Lady of the Well,” the figure said in a soft voice.

Bond looked back and this time saw a wispy pale figure slumped against the well, impossibly young and dressed in a style from a different era.

“Who was she?” Bond asked, well aware he might be losing the last of whatever sanity he had left.

“It has been so long, she’d forgotten her own name,” the old woman replied, moving away from the well and Bond followed.

“Who was she waiting for?”

“Her lost love, but she is not the reason you came to this place.”

Bond looked down at the seated figure before him and his instinct screamed that she was the same as the girl beside the well. A memory. A ghost. Something long dead.

“I felt myself dying,” Bond finally said aloud, something that had been gnawing inside of him like a festering wound since Istanbul. “I should be dead.”

“It is not your fault, she wanted you to live,” the old woman shrugged as if that was explanation enough.

“Who? How is it possible? And how long would I keep not dying?” Bond swallowed his quickly rising panic. Death was something he knew, a constant companion in his walk of life.

“You know who, and as for how, it was a powerful spell, but all things end in time.” She gestured at the clearing around them, of what must once had been the garden of a wealthy manor, now reduced to broken rocks and dust.

Instinct flared at the back of his mind and he snatched at her hand, holding it in scrutiny, a smooth hand that belonged more to a young woman than an old one.

“Vesper,” Bond said, and as if the one single word broke the spell, she stood from the chair and the face she was wearing flickered to her own, her bright red dress flared around her, and for a moment she looked as if she was alive again.

She looked up at him before she lowered her eyes, “I’m sorry for deceiving you James.”

“Vesper,” Bond said again, of all the things he wanted to say, to call her a liar and a bitch, he could say none of it because he knew better than anyone that the dead do not care.

“You’d once promised me everything you had left, now I’m giving it back, have a good life James and goodbye.” Vesper looked him in the eye with a smile, this one brilliant and not at all like the small sad ones she’d always given him.

Bond found himself standing on the sidewalk outside the alley, his phone in hand. Its insistent ringing from an unknown number caused no small number of pedestrians to give him a wide berth as he stared into nothingness.

“Double oh seven.” The voice on the other end was both a mixture of exasperation and relief that Bond had finally answered his phone.

“Q, I’m returning to London.”


End file.
